About the Founder
The work I do isn’t about coaching. It’s about leading — when the stakes are real.
Leadership happens in the moments that test you most — the answers aren’t obvious and every decision carries real weight.
Rooted in the work of Dr. Lee Thayer.
Carried forward through Leadership TBD.
This work is not trend-based. It’s built on decades of intellectual rigor and the belief that real leadership begins where certainty ends.
Joelle Thayer
I work with leaders who’ve already achieved what they set out to do — and are now asking harder questions about what comes next. My work is part inquiry, part rigor, part art. It sharpens how you think, decide, and lead when there’s no playbook left.
I’ve spent two decades building, leading, and coaching inside organizations that move fast and matter. Every room I hold is built for leaders serious about growth — not just scaling results, but refining how they decide and how they show up.
The work is serious — but it’s also the most alive place a leader can stand.
I was the only person personally trained — for nearly 40 years — by Dr. Lee Thayer, a merciless-yet-mirthful “professional cage rattler” and one of the great leadership thinkers of his era.
A Few Things I Believe About The Work
Serious doesn’t mean joyless.
Perspective changes everything.
Every decision teaches something.
Thinking shapes reality.
The right room changes what’s possible.
Rigor.
Presence.
Inquiry.
Consequence.
Precision.
Human.
Rigor. Presence. Inquiry. Consequence. Precision. Human.
About Dr. Lee Thayer
Dr. Thayer spent five decades studying and teaching the architecture of leadership — how people think, communicate, and create systems that work.
He coached executives, generals, and thinkers across the world, believing that leadership isn’t a skillset; it’s a way of being. He taught that leadership is the discipline of becoming the kind of person for whom better results become inevitable.
I had the rare opportunity to learn from him directly — not through theory, but through practice and relentless expectation. His thinking shaped everything I do — not as imitation, but as continuation.
Leadership TBD exists to carry that standard forward — a living continuation of his philosophy, refined for today’s leaders.
Lee Thayer 1927-2020
His work became the standard we still measure against.
Carrying It Forward
This work lives on through the leaders who step into these rooms.
It isn’t about legacy — it’s about a living standard.
Every circle. Every exchange.
Every question that sharpens understanding keeps the practice alive.
The conversation continues in every room we build.